Page 12 of Knot Excused
“What about her face?” the other woman countered. “Kind of plain, didn’t you think? Absolute white trash energy.”
They left, laughing, and I emerged with only one thought on my mind.
Did my Alphas agree with what the women had been saying? Is that why they weren’t acting excited to be married?
CHAPTER9
Rook
Isipped my wine and tried to ignore the headache pounding behind my eyes.
What I desperately want is to rip this tie and suit off, but I’ve learned from years as a politician that you just have to suck your nut up and deal with things as they are.
That includes this wedding reception.
I moved through the reception crowd with metronomic regularity, shaking hands and thanking the guests for coming. Piper is supposed to stay beside me, but she isn’t as quick as I am, and I can’t see her behind me. If she doesn’t pick up the pace, she’ll be at this all night.
Her face fell when I told her it was customary for newly-married Omegas to thank each guest personally and give them a little gift we had bought.
“But I don’t know any of these people,” she protested.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “It is still a necessary duty for an Omega.”
And if anyone knows about their necessary duty it’s me.
But it’s just further confirmation that she is not going to be any benefit to me at all as a politician’s wife.
As I pass down the line, I walk by Beatrice, looking perfectly put-together and presentable as she always does in an elegant sapphire blue gown.
Oh, why couldn’tshehave been an Omega?
My campaign managerandmy wife. It would have been perfect.
I’m wracked with regret, wishing things were different. But it doesn’t matter now. Being an elite Alpha is goddamn stifling sometimes. The obligation to go into politics as the eldest son of my revered father, then the need to take an Omega and win this election.
So why, when everything was going so well for us, did we get saddled with this Omega?
I could barely even scent Piper, for God’s sake, with all the heavy competing shit she’d sprayed on herself. It wasn’t that she was totally ugly or anything, in fact I’d barely looked at her, but it was simply that she was totally and in all ways unsuitable for a Pack like ours.
My phone buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out as guests began to sit down, awaiting the sumptuous five-star dinner prepared by the country’s finest chefs. Piper, of course, would be greeting guests and giving gifts until late into the evening.
It’s Erain.
Meet me in the lower hallway, east wing
Fuck, what now?
I thought Erain had accepted this marriage, but no. Apparently he was going to pull me out of the reception to bitch at me again for daring to do what we’d been putting off for years. What it was our duty as an Alpha pack of 30-year-old men to do.
How was I supposed to know what was going to happen?
We had displayed at her scent, right?I argued to myself, furious to realize my brain was going in the same tired path it had for the last week.
Could there have been some mistake? Could there have been some other reason our temperatures all spiked at the same time? Maybe we all had low-grade fevers or the flu?
The east wing was rarely traveled because palace staff were still working on updating all the guest rooms into a more modern style, so all the halls were deserted.
When I made it down to the lower wing, Erain stepped out to meet me and I knew we were fucked.
